jeans. Black tank top with a black, Loro Piana Traveller jacket. Her lipstick was perfectly outlined just like her eyes.
“Did I hear you say there was a tunnel?” she asked.
“This here is the tunnel from hell,” Lula said.
The woman moved closer and studied the ladder. “What’s down there?”
“Mostly mud and rats,” I said.
“Interesting,” she said. “A tunnel under a strip club. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll investigate.”
“And fire,” I said. “Did I mention the fire?”
She was already halfway down the ladder.
“Hey!” I yelled at her. “The tunnel is dangerous. You shouldn’t be exploring down there.”
She disappeared from view, her boots echoing on the concrete for a short time, and then there was silence.
“Do you know her?” I asked the bartender.
“Never saw her before,” he said.
“She’s not from Jersey,” Lula said. “She doesn’t talk right. She sounds like Eliza Doolittle. And she’s a crazy lady, but she got good taste in purses. She had a Fendi mini backpack hanging from her shoulder. I always wanted one of them.”
Lula and I were splattered with mud and smelled of gasoline. We left the back room, walked through the dimly lit barroom, and went out the door. We stood blinking in the bright sunlight.
“I need to get out of these clothes before I got spontaneous combustion going on,” Lula said.
CHAPTER TWO
I dropped Lula off at the bail bonds office on Hamilton Avenue. Her car was parked at the curb, and my cousin Vinnie’s Cadillac was parked behind her. Vinnie’s name is on the store front sign. Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. And on some more or less official papers it looks like Vinnie owns the business. Truth is, his father-in-law, Harry the Hammer, owns the business, and he also owns Vinnie.
Traffic was light, allowing me to do the drive from the bail bonds office to my apartment building in less than fifteen minutes. I had the windows open, hoping the gasoline smell wouldn’t linger in the upholstery. I was driving a blue Honda CR-V that wasn’t brand-new, but it was new to me.
I live in a boring but adequately maintained three-story apartment building on the outskirts of Trenton proper. My one-bedroom apartment is on the second floor and looks out at the parking lot. It’s not a scenic location but it’s quiet with the exception of the dumpster collection twice a week. I share the apartment with a hamster named Rex. He lives in an aquarium on my kitchen counter, and he sleeps in a soup can. Until very recently I sometimes shared the apartment with an on-again, off-again boyfriend, Joe Morelli. He’s a plainclothes Trenton cop working crimes against persons. Our relationship is currently in the off-again stage, so these days it’s just me and Rex.
Rex is mostly a nighttime kind of guy, but he peeked out of his soup can when I walked into the kitchen.
“Here’s the deal,” I said to Rex. “I didn’t find Charlie Shine, but I did find his partner Lou. He tried to set me on fire, and he got away, but as you can see I’m perfectly okay. Except for my sneakers that smell like gasoline.”
Rex retreated into his den, so I assumed he didn’t feel compelled to know the details of my ordeal.
I dropped an apple slice into his food dish, and I tossed the sneakers into the trash. I needed new ones anyway.
* * *
My parents live a couple of blocks from the bail bonds office in a residential chunk of Trenton called the Burg. I grew up in the Burg and I feel comfortable there, but it’s not where I want to live. The Burg is a lot like Rex’s glass aquarium. Small and enclosed and open for everyone to see in. I can’t get away from my past in the Burg. Not that my past is so terrible. It’s more that I’d like to be judged on my future… whatever that might be. Since I don’t have a good grip on my future, I’m stuck in the Burg and its surrounding neighborhood, which is another way of saying I’m halfway to who-knows-where.
My parents still live in the house where I grew up. It’s a small house on a small lot. The house is painted mustard yellow and brown, not because anyone likes the colors but because it costs too much money to change. There are three small bedrooms upstairs plus a bathroom. Living room, dining room, and kitchen downstairs. Narrow front porch running the width of the house. Small stoop in the